In the first quarter (January-March) of 2010, California employers reported 528 mass layoff events that resulted in the separation of 93,773 workers from their jobs for at least 31 days. This is a decrease of 318 mass layoff events and 32,989 separations compared to the first quarter of 2009. California's total number of 528 mass layoff events was 28 percent of the nation's 1,870 reported layoff events and the 93,773 separations were 30 percent of the nation's 313,660 reported separations. The most notable job losses were in 'Construction,' 'Manufacturing,' and 'Retail trade.'

Extended mass layoffs that involve the movement of work within the same company or to a different company, whether domestic or outside of the United States, occurred in 2 percent of the non-seasonal layoff events, which resulted in 2,093 worker separations. This is an increase of 1 percent of events as reported in the first quarter of 2009 with an increase of 968 separations.

Other significant trends include:

Of the employers who anticipated recalling workers, 31 percent expected to extend the offer to all affected workers. This recall rate is sharply higher than the previous year's rate of 16 percent.

Permanent worksite closures occurred in 9 percent of all events and affected 9,980 workers. Although this is an increase of 4 percent of events from the 5 percent reported in the first quarter of 2009, the layoffs resulted in 5,916 fewer separations.

The most common reasons given for the verified layoffs are as follows:

Employers did not provide a reason for 28 percent of the layoffs, a total of 25,790 separations.

The California Employment Development Department's (EDD) Labor Market Information Division (LMID) operates the Mass Layoff Statistics Program through a cooperative agreement with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can access MLS data on our Web site. State data may not match BLS published data due to the dynamic nature of State MLS databases.